By John Frierson
Staff Writer

Georgia men’s basketball coach Mike White described guard Justin Bailey as a great guy and “old school” type of person and player.

“That’s definitely accurate,” said Bailey, a 6-foot-3 senior from Greer, S.C. “He calls me uncle, like, ‘How you doing, Unc?’ every time I walk past him. All my teammates call me the same thing.”

Bailey said he’s spent much of his life around older people, “so I just kind of have an old-school vibe to me, stay out the way; if I have to say something, I’ll say it, but I don’t try to do too much.”

One thing Bailey has done a lot of is win. As a senior at Blue Ridge High School, he won a Class 3A state championship while averaging 28.8 points and 11.9 rebounds a game, and was the South Carolina Class 3A Player of the Year.

“It took me three years in high school until I won a state championship, and it took a lot of losing. You have to learn how to lose, I feel like, to understand how to win,” Bailey said.

He began his collegiate career at USC-Upstate, where he started 12 games and averaged 10.6 points per game for the season. As a sophomore, he started 28 games and averaged 11.8 points. He transferred to Wofford for his junior year and helped the Terriers win the Southern Conference tournament title as the No. 6 seed. He started every game he played in, averaged 9.6 points, 3.5 rebounds, 1.7 assists, and a team-high 1.2 steals, and made the SoCon’s All-Defensive Team.

In the SoCon tourney final against Furman, Bailey had 19 points and a game-high seven rebounds. That win, 92-85, knowing that the tourney champion would go to the NCAA tournament, was the best moment of Bailey’s basketball career so far.

“I had an efficient (19) points in that game, and I also hit 1,000 career points in that game, so I was stoked about that, as well,” he said. “That was my first time ever getting to the NCAA tournament, so that was a big game for Wofford and me, and the people around me.”

After two years at USC-Upstate and one year at Wofford, Bailey’s move to Georgia was a dream come true.

“I always knew I wanted to play in the SEC,” he said. “I remember telling my dad that when I was a senior in high school. I knew I was going to continue to work my way up, and that’s always been in the back of my head.

“Everything that I said I wanted to do, I’ve set out and done it.”

Bailey was an avid soccer player when he was young, and still loves the game today. He will regularly watch English Premier League games, and his favorite player is Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah.

“I was a pretty good player, and I still watch soccer to this day. I actually enjoyed the running (in soccer), and I still run to this day in the offseason. I think that just kind of built my endurance when I got on the basketball court. Running it back and forth, it’s nothing to me now.”

When you talk with Bailey for a few minutes, it’s easy to come away thinking he’d be a really good coach one day.

“I really haven’t had much time to think about it,” he said of getting into coaching once his playing days are done. “I wouldn’t knock it. Obviously, I want to play professionally for however long I can, and then I’ll just let all the chips fall where they may.”

When he was at Wofford, the team took a summer trip abroad and played in Egypt and Greece. That trip opened Bailey’s eyes in a variety of ways, including sparking an interest in playing overseas if he gets the opportunity.

“We went to Cairo, and it was like, Oh, wow! And then we ended up in Athens, Greece, for a couple of days, and I loved every second of it,” he said. “I mean, it’s just a different vibe out there, so to be able to play basketball professionally over there, I would love that.”

The Bulldogs wrap up their home schedule on Tuesday against No. 17 Alabama at Stegeman Coliseum.

Assistant Sports Communications Director John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men’s Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files.